International Cartridge Corporation provided us with all of our ammunition. It was frangible .45 ACP and 9mm. I had heard bad things about frangible ammunition, but this stuff was pretty tip top. No failures to chamber, no misfires, and it shot just as well as you would expect any good quality commercial ball ammo. As a silhouette shooter who’s been stung by a few bits of jacket flying back from ball ammo, I would never think about blasting away at a steel plate from 5 feet away, but we did, repeatedly and fast The bullets just turns to dust when it comes into contact with hardened steel. Since they are non-toxic, lead free ammunition, this isn’t really a problem. My club stopped doing Bowling Pin shooting because of ricochet fears, but I’m thinking this ammunition could be the solution to the problem of ricochet off bowling pins. The bullet is made from a copper/tin mixture. The only unfortunate thing is they don’t sell bullets for reloaders, since they said a normal reloading press will tend to crack the bullets.

Dan also brought us some .223 ball ammo, which I was told is not a catalog item, but since ICC’s law enforcement customers often have a hard time getting a hold of quality .223 ammo, and they have the equipment to make it, they will do runs of standard .223 to help out their law enforcement customers. The brass they use looks to be pretty high quality stuff, so after we were done shooting the Para TTR I ran around and collected up all the brass to reload it (yay for free once fired brass!). I might have to get some ICC .223 frangible, since it’s a great home defense round, and after seeing Dan’s ammo shoot, I would be willing to bet my life on it.

By the way, International Cartridge is a Pennsylvania company, located in Western Pennsylvania a few miles north of Punxsutawney. But we definitely appreciate Dan Smith of ICC coming out to keep our guns well fed. Anyone who brings down a whole truckload of ammo (literally) is OK with us. Dan was a pretty good shooter too, but you know, I’d probably be a pretty good shooter too if I had my own ammo company. I might have to see about visiting ICC’s facility one day, and writing more about them, since they are a Pennsylvania company. They are making a pretty good product that could solve a lot of problems for the shooting community, especially for those of us being encroached upon by development, and under increasing pressure to deal with lead and minimize the risk of ricochet.

2 Responses to “ICC Frangible Ammunition”

You should check with Dan to see if the pins are OK to shoot. I remember reading that the frangible only shatters if the target is harder than the bullet. Same for the .223. I think box-o-truth tested the .223. But unjacketed frangible .223 has been known to cause kabooms due to throat erosion from the velocities reached. I only use jacketed frangible .223 myself.

That’s a god point. I did actually him about that, and he said it would shoot through a bowling pin, rather than disintegrate, which I probably should have taken to mean that it would bounce off one too.